


Of Gems and Generations

by PockySquirrel



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5700151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PockySquirrel/pseuds/PockySquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mysterious energy fluctuation in the Morphing Grid has caused the Dino Gems to re-energize, and Billy and Tommy are on the case to find out why. What they find will lead to the birth of a new Ranger team. Pre-series Dino Charge origin and general worldbuilding shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Gems and Generations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyrdwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrdwyn/gifts).



Earth. A second trip within the space of a few months was more than Billy had seen of his forsaken homeworld in years. The first trip hadn’t been under the best of circumstances, and the second looked as though it would be much the same. The final activation of the Ranger Keys - all of them, all at once, and in a way that had never been intended in their original design - had put a significant strain on the structure of the Morphing Grid. In the aftermath of that, the sort of energy fluctuations he had been picking up recently couldn’t be a good sign, especially when they were coming from the direction of Earth. He found the anomaly worrisome enough that, only shortly after returning to Aquitar from Earth, he had turned around to go back. 

A bleeping sound and a notification light on the dashboard in his cockpit indicated an incoming transmission. He immediately recognized the source coordinates as Earth, and more specifically as Reefside. Tommy. That his former teammate was not only trying to contact him now, but also knew to contact him on the ship rather than on Aquitar was troubling to Billy, but not surprising. There were a handful of people on Earth who had dabbled deeply enough in the science of the Morphing Grid to detect the same anomaly that Billy himself had, and of them, Tommy had been the least interested in retiring from Ranger life. He’d probably pounced on whatever this was the second he had come across it, and just as likely was reaching out to Billy because his own investigation was at a standstill. 

He tapped the touchscreen to accept the transmission, hoping he didn’t look as worn out as he still felt. 

There was no point in formalities. “If you’re calling about a recent and bizarre fluctuation in the Morphing Grid, I’m already aware of it and on my way.”

“Yeah,” Tommy replied. “I figured as much when I tried calling you on Aquitar and they told me you were already gone.”

“Guilty as charged. I’m sure you’ve been monitoring the energy readings from your location. Can you send me your data so I can run a comparative analysis?”

“I can,” Tommy agreed. “Although I’ve gotta warn you, you’re probably not going to like it any more than I did.”

Tommy’s face disappeared from the viewscreen momentarily as he turned aside to start sending the necessary files. A notification popped up on Billy’s console as well; he quickly accepted the download and instructed the shipboard computer to begin the analysis.

“There’s something else about this that you need to know,” Tommy said as he turned back to the viewscreen. 

Billy watched intently as Tommy reached offscreen once again, returning with a familiar stone in the palm of his hand. The Black Dino Gem. It should have been dark and inert, but it was instead pulsating with light from within, brightening and dimming in a fashion that almost resembled the pattern of a heartbeat. 

He leaned forward in his seat, fascination overruling the logical thought that getting closer to the screen wouldn’t actually allow him any greater insight into what he was seeing. 

“The energy in the Dino Gems was depleted in your last battle against Mesogog. Even Kira’s couldn’t maintain a connection to the Morphing Grid without being continually recharged by Sentinel Knight. The amount of power it would take for yours to reactivate...this shouldn’t be possible.”

“Exactly,” Tommy agreed. “And get this - all of them are doing it. That’s how I found the energy fluctuation in the first place. Not only does my gem wake up, I get four phone calls from the others in the span of fifteen minutes that theirs have done the same. And our unmorphed abilities are back, too. I can turn myself invisible again. No one’s attempted to morph yet - and I’ve told the others not to, not till we can figure out what’s going on - but as near as I can tell, we’ve got all five morphers online and fully operational.”

“Have you talked to anyone else?” Billy pressed. “Has this happened to any of the other teams?”

“No, as far as I can tell, it’s just been the Dino Gems,” Tommy confirmed.

“This tells us something, then,” Billy said, thoughts already humming as to what that ‘something’ might be. “It gives us a place to start.”

***

For someone who had been so rule-abiding in his youth, Billy had gotten used to being in places he shouldn't. Maybe at the age of 15, he might have paused. But now? Now all he waited for was confirmation that none of the museum workers were nearby before he ducked inside the door marked ‘staff only’. There was nothing for it. The tracking device he had rigged up in Tommy’s lab to track the energy fluctuations at closer range had led him this far, and ground zero appeared to be located in the museum’s basement. That it happened to be a museum focusing on dinosaurs was further confirmation that he was on the right track. Dino Gems, dinosaur museum; it couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Billy crept down the dimly-lit stairwell and ventured into the basement, continuing to periodically glance at the tracker for guidance as he progressed. There wasn’t much to see down here, not at first. Boxes of stockpiled paper goods, janitorial supplies, the remnants of mothballed exhibits in haphazard storage. Finding the secret door amid the clutter was the easy part; getting to it without knocking anything over that might alert someone upstairs took a bit more doing.

Unlocking it, well, that took no effort at all.

The short passage that followed opened into a room that must have begun its life as a natural cavern before being repurposed. Glowing crystals lined one wall, illuminating the room with an eerie light, and the computer consoles and lab equipment nearby gave off a familiar electronic hum. Billy only had to take one look around this place to guess at its purpose. The tracking device vibrated an insistent confirmation against his wrist.

A sound came from behind him, a light tap against the stone floor. Billy whirled to face the source, automatically falling into a defensive stance. A pair of lanternlike eyes regarded him from a placid reptilian face. The creature leaned on its staff and continued to stare at him quietly, but made no move to attack.

“Who are you?” Billy asked at last, breaching the silence.

“I could ask you the same question, intruder,” the creature replied, and Billy suddenly felt a bit foolish for asking.

“I am called Keeper,” the creature continued. “And intruder or not, I mean you no harm. Nor do I believe you mean any harm to me. Although it is not the one I seek, I sense the spirit of the Triceratops in you. And that means you are no enemy.”

Billy relaxed his stance and took a step forward, wariness now mixed with curiosity. “I haven’t held that power for a very long time. How did you…? Wait. You’re the one causing this, aren’t you. The energy fluctuations that brought me here. You’ve tapped into the Morphing Grid.”

For the first time since the start of this strange encounter, it was Keeper’s turn to look surprised. “A Gridmaster, here? This is indeed unexpected.”

“I was a student of Zordon’s,” Billy explained. “His last. My name is Billy Cranston.”

Keeper nodded an acknowledgement. “Sit down, Billy. It seems we have much to discuss.”

***

The ensuing conversation lasted hours and was interrupted only once, by the frantic arrival of Keeper’s other human ally, one Museum Director Kendall Morgan, who had stormed in on them after realizing the security perimeter of her Command Center had been breached. She was leery of Billy’s presence at first - he had broken in, after all - but Keeper insisted he could be trusted and she grudgingly volunteered both her assistance and supervised access to the base’s computer systems. Billy knew a show of good faith when he saw one and responded in kind, immediately downloading the sum total of his own research on the energy fluctuations and the results of his cross-reference with Tommy’s information into Kendall’s database. After that, it didn’t take long for the three of them to reach a shared hypothesis.

“Without an Energem in hand, it’s impossible to tell for certain, but the energy signatures are too close a match to be coincidence,” Billy said. “Keeper, when you tapped into the Morphing Grid to begin your search for the Energems, the Dino Gems activated simultaneously. There has to be a relationship between the two.”

“Billy,” Kendall said. “You said the Dino Gems came from the meteorite that struck Earth during the late Cretaceous Period, causing the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.”

“Affirmative.”

“The same meteorite that struck shortly after I arrived on Earth,” Keeper added. “After I activated the Energems and bonded each of them to the spirit of a dinosaur.”

“Those two events happening in such close succession...” Billy mused. “What if the relationship was a causal one? It’s possible that the power of the Energems reacted somehow with the mineral composition of the meteorite and _created_ the Dino Gems.”

“A second, almost identical set of Power Objects,” Kendall finished. “That’s a heck of a theory. I just wish we had a way to test it. It might just be our key to finally finding the Energems.”

“I can bring you a Dino Gem,” Billy offered. “On one condition.”

Kendall arched an eyebrow. “What would that be?”

“I have to bring the person that Gem is bonded with.”

***

When the group met back at the Command Center after the museum had closed the following evening, their number had expanded to five. Billy had returned to Amber Beach with not only Tommy in tow, but Hayley Ziktor as well. It was only natural; she had proven years ago that she was just as useful, if not more so, than Tommy in matters of this kind. Billy introduced the two of them to Kendall and Keeper, then asked Tommy to turn over his Dino Gem so they could start running tests.

“Oliver,” Kendall muttered to herself. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

A few minutes later, her head snapped up in recognition. “Thomas Oliver. ‘A DNA Derivation and Genome Modification Protocol Using Skeletel Fossils of Triassic-Era Theropods’. _That_ Thomas Oliver?”

“The very same. You’ve heard of me?” Given the brief and strange nature of his career as a paleontologist, Tommy wasn’t exactly accustomed to being recognized in professional circles.

“It’s the strangest coincidence, but I actually just referenced one of your articles in my dissertation.”

“Is that so?” Tommy grinned broadly. “Well, I’m glad you found my work to be of some assistance to you.”

“Actually,” Kendall replied. “I found the experimental method you developed to be lacking and proposed an alternative. I’d be happy to forward it to you when it’s completed, if you’d like.”

Hayley stifled a laugh. Billy just smiled and turned his attention back to the Dino Gem, figuring it would be wiser to stay out of this argument for as long as he possibly could.

***

The tests on Tommy’s Dino Gem went as well as they possibly could have. Not only did the findings seem to confirm that the Dino Gems were indeed created using the Energems’ power, they also confirmed Kendall’s hope that tracking the Energems might be possible. It operated similarly to the improvised tracker Billy had first used to find Keeper, and was programmed to hone in on energy signatures that resonated at the same frequency as the Dino Gems.

“It’ll be of limited use to you, I’m afraid,” Billy cautioned. “Of the five Dino Gems, only three of them share energy wavelengths in common with the Energems: red, blue, and black.”

“I’ll get the red and blue Dino Gems and bring them by later,” Tommy said. “We can program their energy signatures into the system then.”

“If we can even find one, then our work will have already paid off,” Kendall replied. “Once I have an actual Energem to analyze, I might be able to modify the base program of the tracker for greater accuracy, then use it to find the rest.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” Billy agreed. “Keep me posted on your progress. I’ll be staying on Earth for awhile, just to keep an eye on things. This isn’t my fight, but one can’t be too careful where the Morphing Grid is concerned.”

“I’ll keep you in the loop,” Kendall assured, though Billy suspected she was humoring him.

***

Kendall kept to her word. Billy, who had taken over the disused lab underneath Tommy’s house as his temporary workspace, received a curt but prompt notification when the tracking system first found something, and a second shortly thereafter confirming that it was, indeed, an Energem. The black Energem, to be precise. Billy dutifully passed along word of this success to Tommy and Hayley, and then immediately had to talk Tommy out of an impromptu road trip to Amber Beach to meet his latest successor. 

“Let them do this on their own,” Hayley urged. As usual, she was the one best equipped to make Tommy see reason. “They’re going to be a Ranger team. and that means they’re going to need to learn these things without the old guard spoon-feeding them everything. If they need us, they’ll call.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t long after the discovery of the first Energem that Billy received a rather exasperated video call from Kendall’s base.

“Do you happen to know anything about the effects of long-term improvised cryo-stasis on human anatomy?”

Billy blinked, mentally unpacking the question. “You found somebody...frozen?”

“Yes.”

“With an Energem?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s alive?”

“As near as we can tell,” Kendall sighed. “It’s not easy to get accurate vital signs through an eight-inch thick sheet of ice. But Keeper insists he’s alive, so that’s the assumption I’m acting on.”

“How long?”

“If the clothing and tools are any indication, I’d guess...roughly a hundred thousand years.”

“...Oh boy. That could be a problem.”

“Now do you see why I called?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever dealt with anything like this before, but...I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you.”

Billy immediately headed upstairs. Tommy, who was just getting in from work, shot him a questioning look.

“Kendall called,” he explained. “They found another Energem...the bearer of which has apparently been kept alive in a state of cryogenic preservation for a hundred thousand years.”

“...She found an Energem with a frozen _caveman_?”

“That’s about the size of it, yes.”

“You do realize you’re not going to be able to talk me out of going with you, right?”

“I was actually hoping you would,” Billy admitted. “If Kendall’s...caveman...actually is alive, and bonded to an Energem, then he’s not only going to need to function in the modern world, he’s going to need to be able to fight as a Ranger. Kendall might have found fault with your methods of genetic manipulation, but that doesn’t change the fact that meddling with the laws of evolution is much more your area of expertise than it is mine.”

Tommy frowned. “I don’t know whether I should be flattered or offended.”

“Decide _after_ we wake the caveman,” Billy suggested. “Let’s go.”

***

The man in the block of ice was just as Kendall had described, and made for a surreal sight. Billy put a tentative hand on the frigid surface, only to jerk it away just as quickly from the spark of very blue energy that snapped out toward his fingertips.

“A stegosaurus?” he wondered aloud.

Tommy grinned playfully at him. “You sound disappointed.”

“Your triceratops is bonded to the pink Energem,” Keeper helpfully supplied.

“Not a word,” Billy said to Tommy, heading off the inevitable comment. “Any pink-related jokes can and will be relayed to Kim and Kat, and I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.”

“Fine, spoilsport,” Tommy relented. “Let’s get to work.”

Chase, the newest Black Ranger, had been hovering around the entire time, as close as he could get before Kendall could shoo him away in irritation. He appeared between Billy and Tommy as the two of them began examining the block of ice and discussing what their first move would be. 

“Is he going to be all right?” Chase asked, already anxious about the fate of this potential teammate.

Billy looked toward him, then down at the frost-obscured face of the man in the ice, both predecessor and successor to him, once and future heir to the Blue Ranger power. The man’s frozen expression was difficult to see, but if Billy had to guess, he would have said that the man looked afraid.

“He will if we have anything to say about it,” Billy replied with renewed determination. Somehow, he felt he owed both Chase and the man in the ice that much.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kyrdwyn for the delightful prompts, and for giving me ample excuse to write what is pretty much my favorite Billy-related trope of all time. This was a pleasure. :D


End file.
